ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how lenses, filters, and light itself all contribute to image formation and their influences on image attributes. Light or radiated energy informs what can be observed and subsequently what can be recorded in a photographic exposure. Describing electromagnetic radiation and how radiated energy behaves has been a challenge for physicists for centuries. Even today, no singular model for describing radiant energy travel has been universally accepted because none explains all aspects of energy behaviors by themselves. Electromagnetic radiation comes from a wide variety of sources including the sun; incandescent sources such as tungsten and tungsten halogen bulbs; fluorescent lighting; metal halide sources; LED, OLED, neon, laser, and HMI; and electronic flash systems. Color temperature is used to describe color characteristics of light with applications specifically to photography, astronomy, video, publishing, astronomy, and home interior products. Dispersion occurs when light is broken up into its components by the refractive properties of an optical material.
